


Reach Out

by Falconette



Category: Free!
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 10:26:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6113602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falconette/pseuds/Falconette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sousuke, somewhere in middle school, chasing results and missing the point</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reach Out

 

**Reach out**

With a forceful push, he surged out for a precious breath, arching his back sharply upwards and raising his mouth above the water surface for a brief, well-timed moment, before his forehead led the way in again, breaking the wave he pushed before him and plunging the arms and the body out of sight. A moment later, he repeated the motion further along in the same practiced rhythm that made swimming butterfly look deceptively effortless.  

His big palms ploughed through the water mercilessly, the flesh prevailing against the fluid but not without a fight, propelling him forward, making him fly above and below the surface with almost the same speed and might. The body caught and kept the momentum, snaking up and down in a forward glide, the strong arms pushing and soaring in coordination that came to him unconsciously, like breathing. Powerful and trained, his muscles, overdeveloped and accustomed to the strain, went through the repetitive movements obediently and precisely with a sole goal in sight – go faster.

He reached the wall, pushed, in the same moment turning underwater and rushing back, down the same lane he came from, challenging another, countless 25m stretch. As he surfaced, he already knew he would not last no matter how hard he tried to ignore the protest of his exhausted limbs that desperately needed the oxygen he exhaled while turning. He gave it a few more strokes, knowing he was fighting a losing battle, but predictably – his hands and legs were leaden, dragging him down and making him stop despite the will to claw onward towards the opposite wall.

He halted, caught a few shallow breaths and started slowly swimming forward with his head above the water, not fighting it anymore, devouring the sweet, abundant air. Almost automatically, like his swimming, his eyes moved towards the next lane just as she was passing by, furtively catching a flash of her extended arms as they plunged in the water before her like wings of a diving sea bird, creating a significantly smaller splash then the one he was making.

He loved watching her swim butterfly. She couldn’t rely on brute strength like he could, so she had to hone her technique to a high level, slippery like an eel, graceful like a swallow. Sometimes he would watch her underwater, her slender body undulating up and down in sync with her arms and legs, like an elegant sea animal frolicking just below the surface.

Where he was fighting for every inch, forcefully claiming his right of way, she seemed to slip through, supported by the soft and caring palm of the water that raised her out to breathe before nesting her in again. Being a swimmer, he had no illusions about the beautiful facade and all he needed to see was the way she clung to the pool edge gasping for breath after a spurt to know that water had no favorites and cut no one any slacks.

The water treated everyone equally, she just negotiated with it differently.

He swung his arms in her direction, like he could touch and caress her by the water that connected them, craving to feel the barely perceptible pressure her body made when passing by, feeling like she was slipping through his fingers. She made a turn and was going his way again, gaining in on him as he reached the other end of the pool.

“Sousuke kun.” she nodded in greeting, pulled the goggles off, swinging her elbow outside the tiled edge and catching her breath. His chin made a barely perceptible dip in reply before his powerful legs propelled him like a torpedo through the water, towards the far edge, without giving her a chance to say another word. He slid in, but not before he noted the smile freeze then fade from her face, then he resurfaced and went into the calming pull-pull-pull-breathe rhythm of the front crawl, shutting out the signals from fatigued muscles. He didn’t have the time for their protests just like he didn’t have the time for getting to know her. There was only one thing he did know and want – to go faster.

The front crawl was not his specialty so he used it roughly, like a lumberjack would an axe, leaving the fine sanding and polishing of each detail of the technique to others, exploiting it to build strength and durability in muscles he didn’t utilize so much in the fly. Reaching the starting block again, he turned and covered the same distance in the same manner of crude only by the backstroke, making the water yield with each vehement swing. Reaching the wall, he kicked off, this time underwater in series of powerful dolphin kicks, surfacing for air only when his lungs threatened to explode, concentrating rather on the physical pain than on the feeling of longing. Of missing something important.

He was well aware that she was still in the spot where he had left her, probably waiting for him to tire out and stop, respecting his priorities. Only, he would not stop. He would go on and on and call on the pain in his body to spurt him onwards until he broke another barrier, set another personal record, until she got tired of waiting.

The pain helped him stay focused. The pain drove him on.

Lately the pain has started to concentrate out of the realm of abstract and general to a specific spot in his right shoulder, making itself known and heard even without his call. In fact, lately, it refused to go away. It would linger, dull and persistent, long after his training sessions and long into the night. Outside the water, the pain made no sense, it had no purpose. Outside the water, the pain scared him.

So he swam on.

He touched the far wall with a trembling hand and cast a fleeting glance back, thinking about the world outside the pool.

She was gone. The pain remained.


End file.
